


To See the Stars

by patster223



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Aftermath of forced amputation, Ambiguous/happy ending, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dancing, Disordered Eating, M/M, Police Brutality, Revolution, Snowpiercer AU - Freeform, Spoilers for the movie Snowpiercer, Violence, Vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 17:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2159379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/pseuds/patster223
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For seventeen years, the cramped, windowless box of the Snowpiercer's tail has been Hermann Gottlieb's entire world. He wonders if he is brave enough to know anything else. </p>
<p>Pacific Rim fusion with the movie Snowpiercer (knowledge of the film is not necessary to read).</p>
            </blockquote>





	To See the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [geniusbee](http://geniusbee.tumblr.com/) . Originally posted on [tumblr](http://patster223.tumblr.com/post/95078261080/wrote-a-newmann-snowpiercer-au-contains-spoilers) , but I'm told that it still makes sense even without having seen the movie, so I'm posting it here as well.
> 
> Quick synopsis of the movie just in case: In an attempt to stop global warming, humans accidentally froze the Earth. The surviving members of humanity live aboard the train The Snowpiercer, which itself an allegory for classism/capitalism.

Hermann spends the first seventeen years of his life in Germany, near the mountains. He doesn’t remember much of those years, nor is he sure if he _wants_ to. But he does remember those cold winter nights, when bitter winds slipped through the cracks of even the sturdiest houses. He remembers the cold.

_No,_ Hermann huffs to himself. _You remember a facsimile of cold. How foolish, to think that you’ve ever known true cold before now._ His thoughts are disrupted into spurts of hazy nothingness as his body spasms through another wave of pain. Hermann muffles a sob.

“Shh, shh,” Newton says, rubbing his arm. “It’s okay, Hermann, you’re okay.” Meaningless murmurings, but they’re all that Hermann has to distract himself from the cold burn settling into his thigh.

“I-I,” Hermann whimpers, reaching down to gently prod at the tender skin on his thigh. He takes a deep breath and lets his trembling fingers wander lower, to where-

Newton grabs his hand. “Jesus, I just stitched you up like an hour ago, man. Don’t touch it.”

“I think I deserve to know,” Hermann snarls, jerking his hand out of Newton’s grasp, “what my lack of a _leg_ feels like.” Closing his eyes, he reaches for the empty space where his thigh gives way to nothing – not a knee, not a leg, _nothing_. He immediately retracts his hand. Bile burns his throat as his fingers stumble over the torn flesh, the ragged stitches. The skin there is still-half frozen and Hermann’s teeth clack together as the cold seeps into his hand.

“Stop it!” Newton cries, trapping Hermann’s hand in both of his. Those in neighboring bunks mutter in discontent as Newton’s voice disturbs their sleep. “Fuck, just stop it,” Newton says.

“Stop acting as if this changes anything,” Hermann says, not letting himself open his eyes. He’s not sure if he could bear to see Newton’s pain right now, not when his own threatens to overwhelm him. “The rebellion will still happen, with or without me.”

“Yeah, but it’s supposed to happen _with_ you, you asshole!” More groans erupt from throughout the compartment as Newton’s voice cracks loudly in distress. The other man’s voice is only slightly quieter when he speaks again. “Why’d you step in like that, huh? We’re _so close_ , Hermann. We’re so close to getting out of this hellhole and getting to the front of the train. How could you risk all of that?”

Hermann stiffens at the betrayal in Newton’s voice. “They were hauling away a child,” he says coldly.

“You think I don’t know that?” Newton says. “But it was you against five guys with guns, Hermann. Who did you think was going to win? Why even bother, when you know what the punishment is for trying something like that?”

He’s not sure how to answer Newton’s question. What is there to say? _I wanted to be brave? Newton, it’s been seventeen years since I boarded this train and I wanted to see if I still remembered how to be brave?_ No, there is nothing to say, no right answer to give.

Hermann curls in on himself, trying to regain any warmth he’d once felt. Having your leg forced out of a train window into sub-zero temperatures doesn’t do wonders for one’s ability to generate body heat. Hermann sighs and the sound is thick and wet. “I’m tired,” he whispers.

Newton is quiet for a long moment. “Yeah,” he finally breathes. “I know, Hermann, I know. Go to bed — I’ll be here.” He presses a shaking kiss to Hermann’s temple.

Hermann can’t lift his head to return the gesture. His body feels leaden, made of stone. It is heavy and useless, and it weighs his spirit down with its exhaustion and its defeat. Wanting to cry from the effort it takes, Hermann wraps his blankets tighter around himself. His shivering barely lessens in violence at the gesture.

To think that he’d thought he knew what cold feels like. He could not have imagined how it seeps into bones, how it lingers and thrashes there. Now he wonders if he shall ever forget it.

So it is.

 

Hermann once had a first class ticket for the Snowpiercer. In another life, he could have been luxuriating in the riches and spoils of the front of the train. He could have always been well-fed and warm.

He wonders if he would prefer that life. He wonders if it’s possible to model the point where giving up the people he knows and loves in the tail of the train would be worth it, if it meant living in safety. If there is such a point.

Hermann doesn’t think about that too often though. The Hermann who would’ve lived that life is not him. No, because Hermann is stubborn and angry enough to have had a falling out with his father only a week before boarding, to have forgotten his ticket in the race to storm out of his home.

So it is. There is no use in regret.

_You ought to be happy_ , one of the older men soothes him. Hermann is grasping a bed frame, sweat soaking through his shirt as he relearns to walk with a cane and a rusted pipe for a leg. _The_ _limbless here are respectable._

Perhaps this man, who is without an arm and a leg, is respectable. But Hermann isn’t. He wasn’t old enough to give a limb at the beginning of the tail’s time, when all that was left to eat was human flesh. He didn’t lose his leg in an act of such valor. Instead, the front had taken it from him after a fruitless act of rebellion: the aftermath of which will only make the oncoming revolution that much more impossible. It was an action that solved nothing.

Newton shoots a glare at the old man before gesturing again to Hermann. “Come on, dude, I know you can keep going. I bet you a bite of my protein bar that you can make it to the end of this hallway.”

Newton has known Hermann ever since they boarded the train, and has been his intimate for fifteen of those years. He knows how to push Hermann’s buttons, how to jostle his competitive edge until it flares too brightly to stand, how to kindle the fire in him that should by all rights be nothing but ash by now.

“Two bites,” Hermann says, panting. And he grits his teeth and takes another step forward.

 

The front end of the train takes what it wants from the tail. Most of the time all they need is simple obedience and order, but occasionally they’ll want more. They’ll take a musician, a laborer, a child.

An engineer.

One of the guards looms over Hermann. The other passengers are on their knees for the inspection, but Hermann must sit on his backside now. He massages his still-tender thigh as he cranes his neck to look at the guard.

“Gottlieb,” the guard says.

Hermann prefers it when people call him by his last name. It always used to make him feel more important, more adult. But here it is a luxury he cannot afford, another thing the train has taken for him. Having the same surname as the builder of the train is a dangerous thing in the tail, and Hermann can already feel the burn of his fellow passengers’ curious glances. “Hermann,” he corrects quietly.

“Get up, Gottlieb,” the guard says, ignoring Hermann’s words. “We need an engineer.”

Hermann’s gaze falls to the ground. “I think you may be mistaken. I was only eighteen when we boarded, I never completed my engineering degree.”

“I didn’t ask for your history,” the guard says, their grip tightening on their gun. “I told you to get up. If the front says you’re qualified enough, you’re qualified enough. Now move.”

Murmurs echo throughout the compartment and the Minister – the woman who is supposedly the liaison between the front and the tail, but who Hermann privately thinks is nothing more than a glorified mouthpiece – elects to speak. “You should be honored, Hermann Gottlieb,” she says sharply. “Nothing is more important than the work it takes to mind and improve our already glorious sacred engine.” 

Her words are empty and meaningless – the gun at Hermann’s head says far more than she does. Hermann swallows heavily, wondering if he even has the energy to stand. His thigh trembles at the thought.

Newton, who is beside him, stands in his place. His eyes spark with defiance and he ignores the harsh whispers of those around him to _sit down, now is not the time, Newt, stop it._ Newton bars his teeth at the guard and says, “And what if he doesn’t want to go? You can’t take him, jackass!”

Oh Newton, you bloody hypocrite. Of _course_ they can.

The guard moves the gun from Hermann to Newton, pressing the muzzle to the inside of Newton’s cheek. Newton’s mouth is forced open wide, his teeth and the back of his throat displayed before the entire compartment.

“Stop!” Hermann cries, struggling to get to his feet. Sweat breaks out across his forehead as he leans against his cane, as he works himself to a standing position. “I’ll come with you, I’ll be your engineer, just _please_ stop!”

Newton’s shaking and sniveling as the pressure of the gun forces him to his knees. Drool trails down his throat as the weapon threatens to take over his entire mouth. The gun hesitates against his cheek and Hermann thinks for a moment that it’s all over-

And then the gun is ripped away and pointed back to Hermann. The remaining guards begin to drag him out of the compartment without ceremony. He grits his teeth as his pipe scrapes against the floor, upsetting the sensitive nerves of his thigh. “Wait,” he gasps. “Can’t I say goodbye?”

Newton scrambles to his feet, screaming, “Hermann!” He runs towards Hermann, but his dash is ended before it truly begins when a guard steps calmly in his path. The crack of a gun against Newton’s skull reverberates throughout the compartment.

“Stop!” Hermann pleads, his voice trembling as icy panic courses through him. “I’m cooperating, can’t you see that? Stop _hurting_ him. Please, just let me say goodbye.” His words go unheeded, his body continues to be dragged towards the door.

Newton lies prone, moaning and dazed from the blow. “Hermann,” he croaks, clutching his head before trying to drag himself across the floor. “Don’t take him, you fascists, don’t you dare-”

The door between cars closes and Newton’s voice is lost. Hermann spends hours agonizing about what could’ve happened to Newton after that. He knows that he may never find out, even if the revolution is successful.

So it is.

 

Hermann is not sure how many compartments they pass through. Sounds of whirring machinery, of murmuring voices, of heavy boots against metal floors flood his ears as Hermann’s dragged through the train. He cannot investigate the sounds; the simple, exhausting task of putting one foot in front of the other consumes his all of his attention.

Eventually, they bring him into a compartment that has-

That has windows. Before Hermann can even think to marvel at the sight, he’s shielding his eyes and hissing in pain. The guards release him, but Hermann hardly notices his freedom as he whimpers into his sleeve. The sunlight bleeds through the light cloth easily, and Hermann’s eyes sting and burn in the wake of its ferocity. He’s not sure how long it is until he can stand to open his eyes again – time has grown to mean very little to him after years stuck in a sealed, metal box. It could’ve taken him minutes, or maybe hours, to get used to existing in a room with windows again.

When he does open his eyes, he can see the sky. For the first time since he boarded the train, he can see the sky, relentless in its vastness. Its pale blue is too deep, too piercing after years of being swamped in browns and grays. It stings to look at and Hermann is soon forced to reluctantly tear his gaze away from the sight.

That’s when he sees the man. It takes Hermann a moment to place him. The last time Hermann saw him, he was spotty and awkward, and the person in front of him is a grown man with a beard and cheeks rid of baby fat. But the moment the man smiles, Hermann knows that he’s staring at his brother.

“Hermann!” Bastien exclaims, reaching his arms out to embrace him. Hermann allows himself to be swept up in the hug, choked and mute in the wake of the unexpected reunion. Hermann is suddenly painfully aware of how thin and small he is in Bastien’s hold, how he reeks of sweat and illness while brother smells lightly of fruit and mint.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” Bastien breathes, pulling away from Hermann. He cannot seem to look away, his awestruck gaze fixed on Hermann’s face as he speaks. “We thought you’d never boarded, that you’d ended up like…”

Hermann closes his eyes. “Like Karla,” he breathes, as he realizes. “She never made it aboard, did she?” He had always suspected, had always guessed that Karla would never accept their father’s offer of a ticket, but he’d never known for sure. Confirmation of his theory surges through him, bitter and hot. He rests his head against the wall of the compartment, wondering at the fact that only hours ago, he’d been safe and content in Newton’s sleepy embrace.

Bastien places a hand on Hermann’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Hermann,” he says. “I thought you’d known…”

“No, I …don’t apologize, Bastien. It’s good to know for sure,” Hermann says softly.  

“Come on, sit,” Bastien says. “This kind of talk can wait – you’re thin as a rail and I’ve got supper all laid out.”

Hermann’s mouth waters at the lavish display of food on the table. At the tail of the train, there’s nothing to eat but rationed protein bars – thick, rubbery things that clog your throat even as they reluctantly fill your stomach. Here, there are dishes that Hermann hasn’t seen since before the train: warm, breaded fish piled with crisp vegetables, thick and creamy soups, glasses of rich red wine.

But then he thinks of the tail of the train – of week after week of reluctantly shoving protein bars down his throat while the front of the train had apparently been eating _this_ – and his stomach turns. The heavy scent of food becomes cloying rather than welcoming. Even with Bastien’s encouragement, he only manages a few bites of the food before he gags at how rich and filling it is.

“I-I can’t,” Hermann says, pushing the bowl of soup away. Bastien nurses him through the nausea, rubbing his back and offering him sips of water. Hermann’s reminded of the way that Newton always helps him through the stomach sicknesses that plague him, and he aches with homesickness.

Homesickness – as if he even knows what home _is_ anymore.

They manage to get Hermann to a sort of baseline, though he manages to stain the tablecloth with his sweat and grubby fingertips before it happens. By that time, Bastien’s curiosity cannot be contained any longer, and he quietly asks, “What was it like in the tail?”

Hermann looks at Bastien’s rich clothing, at the small patch of soup which stains his beard. He laughs; the sound is sharp and ugly. “It’s nothing you can imagine,” Hermann says bitterly. The joy of this reunion is now tempered by the harsh realization that he and Bastien – once as thick as thieves – now come from two completely different worlds.

When Bastien speaks, his voice is solemn – but he cannot contain the pity in his eyes that burns through Hermann like ice. “So the horror stories are true then. Everything you hear about the tail…it’s all true.”

_Is that all I am to the people of the front?_ Hermann wonders. _A horror story for them to shudder at before they eat their dinner?_

“I’m sure many are,” Hermann says. It takes so much effort simply to make his voice audible; the events of the day drag at his mind and fill his limbs with lead. He wonders how to say _it is horror and it is inhumane, but_ we _are not inhumane,_ we _are not horror stories, I fell in love and I cared for children and I danced to whatever music we could remember, I was a_ person, _not a horror story or unthinkable idea._ But he cannot say all that and expect someone from the front to understand. Finally, he just murmurs, “But we have other stories too.”

“I’m a journalist now,” Bastien says hesitantly. “I became one a few years after we boarded. If you want, I could help you tell those stories, Hermann. Maybe it would help to share them.”

Hermann shakes his head. It’s a nice gesture, but no paper wants to publish the stories that Hermann has to tell. No one wants to hear details about the sufferings of the people in tail. No one wants to hear of their humanity either – it would make it all the harder to ignore them.

Hermann thinks of Tendo, who records their history in his low voice and the sound of his guitar. _If the revolution is successful, maybe everyone will hear that music. Maybe then our stories will be heard._

Closing his eyes, Hermann hums one of Tendo’s songs under his breath. It helps – it helps him to block out the smell of congealing food and the harsh light streaming in through the windows. It helps him not to forget all that he must carry with him from tail: desperation and starvation, hope and fear, love and dancing.

 

Several months before Hermann loses his leg, Newton says to him: “Do you want to have sex?”

Hermann thinks the question over. Though it’s nighttime – or what passes for nighttime in their windowless compartment – sounds still echo throughout the tail: shuffling feet and murmuring voices. A woman in the bunk across from theirs coughs weakly. It doesn’t exactly create a mood – not that much does around here.

Hermann sighs. “Not tonight, I’m afraid.”

The bunk above his squeaks as Newton shifts. Hermann thinks that the other man is probably shrugging.

“S’fine,” Newton yawns. He’s aware of the fact that Hermann’s sexual appetite – what there is of it  — wasn’t much to speak of even before the train. Newton begins to hum, singing a melody that is rhythmic and fast. Hermann doesn’t recognize it.

“Is that one of Tendo’s?” he asks.

“Nah,” Newton says. “It’s Queen.”

“Queen?”

A moment of silence and then Newton’s upside-down head peeks into Hermann’s space. “Dude, you remember Queen, don’t you?”

It’s been over seventeen years since Hermann has listened to a radio, a CD, an mp3 player. Hermann’s thinking is based in the visual, in diagrams and in images: music is one of the first things he lost aboard the train. He doesn’t answer Newton’s question. He doesn’t have to.

Newton’s face softens. “Queen, Hermann.” Newton clears his throat and sings: “‘Fat bottomed girls, you make the rocking world go ‘round.’ You know, that?”

Hermann wrinkles his nose – both at the man’s discordant voice and the lyrics themselves. “I’m thankful to say that I don’t remember that,” he murmurs to himself.

Newton frowns, aghast at Hermann’s words. No wonder — Newton probably remembers more songs than half of the tail combined. “God, I wish I had my CDs,” he moans. “You _have_ to remember Queen, Hermann. What about this one: ‘we are the champions, my friends, and we’ll keep on fighting ‘til the end-’”

“No. And while that song may be appropriate given our current circumstances, perhaps it would be best to stop while we are ahead,” Hermann says dryly.

Newton rolls his eyes before pulling his head out of sight. A moment later, Newton eases himself off of his bunk, landing on his feet with a dull thump. He holds out a hand to Hermann, his face alight with mirth.

“What?” Hermann says.

Newton takes a deep breath, his posture stiff with uncharacteristic hesitance. After a moment he lets forth a warbling note, his voice soft and low as it joins the bustling sounds of those around them. “‘Can anybody,’” he sings, his eyes never leaving Hermann’s, “‘find me somebody to love?’”

Hermann’s throat tightens as dull recognition flares in the back of his mind. He wraps his hand around Newton’s and allows the other man to pull him close, allows sure hands to gently grasp his hips. Newton laughs – a scratchy, high, _lovely_ sound — at Hermann’s raised eyebrow, but he continues to sing.

Hermann pretends reluctance as he sways in place with Newton, as he wraps his arms around the other man and holds him as close as possible, close enough so that he can no longer tell their heartbeats apart from one another as they dance.

 

Hermann pours over blueprints. He crams as many of their details into his mind as possible while keeping up the pretense of work. When he is alone at night – _alone_ , a concept foreign and uncomfortable after so many years in the tail – and cannot sleep, he copies what he can remember onto the smallest slips of paper he can find. The handwriting is cramped and nearly illegible, but it is all he has to offer the resistance anymore. So it is.

Bastien knows. Of course Bastien knows – he is the only one who even speaks to Hermann anymore. Dieterich certainly wants nothing to do with a tail-ender and neither do any of the engineers whom Hermann now works with. Hermann tells himself he prefers it this way, as it is remarkably easy to slip a secret message into the protein bars when he is so thoroughly ignored.

“They’ll convict you of treason,” Bastien pleads. “Hermann, you can’t do that to yourself, not when you just got to the front. There must be another way to make things better for them back there – mutiny is not the answer.”

Hermann only continues to eat. His appetite has marginally improved as of late, but he still vomits up half of what he eats. The food is simply too rich for his small stomach. It does not help that Hermann’s psyche – scarred by years of protein bars and starvation – never fails to balk at the sight of the food, forcing his breathing to quicken and his pulse to race.

Today is a good day – he’s managed to eat over half of his sandwich. “They don’t _want_ to make things better for us,” Hermann says. “Can’t you see that? What we are doing is what must be done.”

Bastien bites his lip. “Fine, then – but why must _you_ be apart of it? Surely they can do this on your own? They wouldn’t want you to risk your life for them like this.”

Hermann lets out a huff at this last sentence – risk his life? As if their lives were ever safe in the first place. “Bast,” he says, “if you knew that a horror story was real – truly real, not mere folktale or campfire story – would you really be able to stand by and let it happen?”

Bastien cannot answer. How can he, when he does not understand? But when he looks at Hermann, his gaze is no longer pleading: simply resigned. Despite the sorrow in Bastien’s eyes, Hermann knows that his brother will keep his secret. As much as Hermann is loyal and stubborn, Bastien is indecisive and loving – he will not betray Hermann.

Hermann doesn’t want to cause his brother pain. He is so _tired_ of causing people pain. But what tires Hermann, what exhausts him to the very bone, are not things he gets to worry about. He does not have that luxury.

The day that the revolution comes, Hermann’s eyes are glued to the feeds he’s set up in his compartment. He watches as the tail-enders let forth their makeshift battering ram, as they fight their way tooth-and-nail into the rest of the train. Hermann has given them the blueprints, has passed along messages, but now there is nothing to do but watch.

Anxiety rages in his stomach until he’s thrown up everything he’s eaten that day. He feels woozy and sick as he watches person after person fall. This should be a glorious day, a wonderful one — and yet, since the moment this revolution started, Hermann has felt nothing but sorrow. When Pentecost is executed, it threatens to overwhelm him with its potency — it’s as though his entire world has been ripped out from under him.

He holds his tears at bay and keeps his focus to the screen as Mako rallies their forces with a vengeance. As they move onward. They have all lost so much in the past seventeen years – this loss will not be the one to overtake them.

Hermann’s stomach twists with grief nonetheless. In the scuffle of the last battle, he has lost track of Newton. Perhaps Newton is just too short to stand out amongst the high shelves of the car they’re in, perhaps Hermann simply can’t find him in the rush of people, but perhaps…

_He’s okay_ , Hermann thinks, refusing to look at the bodies trailed across the floor of the compartment the tail-enders are moving through. _He has to be okay. We promised-_

The doors to Hermann’s compartment open with a bang. Before he can blink, he’s being dragged out of his room and into another, darker compartment filled with monitors that show the same scenes Hermann had just been watching. Hermann doesn’t beg, doesn’t scream, as he’s shoved into one of the chairs.

He’s just…he is so _tired_.

The Minister appears on screen. “Stop!” she shrieks. “Stop this savagery!” Hermann can hear a muttered “filthy tail-enders” before she continues: “So many of you have died – so many of you _still_ must die. But if you cooperate now, perhaps we can spare some of you. And perhaps your dear Mr. Gottlieb can still survive your stupid mistakes.” 

“‘Mr. Gottlieb’ abandoned us!” a voice shouts from the crowd. Hermann thinks it may be Chuck, but he cannot blame the boy for his words. As far as most of the tail is concerned, Hermann is simply someone who left them all for greener pastures a long time ago.

“Shut up!” another voice snarls, but the cadence of the voice is lost in the sudden shouting and screaming of the tail-enders – Hermann does not recognize it.

An arm appears around Hermann’s neck and a microphone appears at his lips. “Say hello,” the guard orders. Hermann can barely manage a choked breath, wheezing into the microphone as he struggles to form words.

“Hermann!” screeches a voice from the feed. If Hermann could exhale in relief, he would – it’s difficult to tell with all the noise, but it _must_ be Newton’s voice, it _must_ be-

The arm around his neck relaxes its grip and Hermann coughs, the action wracking his chest and leaving him panting into the microphone. “Newton!” he yells, his voice hoarse and painful. “Don’t let them stop you! Make it to the engine – you’re almost there!” 

There’s so much more he wants to say, so many things he’s always had difficulty articulating – but then there is a crack of gun metal against bone, a sudden pain in the back of his head, and Hermann knows that the tail-enders must fight the rest of this battle without him.

 

“Hermann,” Newton says to him, as they are naked and wrapped in each other’s arms. “Hermann,” he murmurs again, kissing each of Hermann’s prominent ribs before wriggling on top of him.

“What is it?” Hermann laughs, pushing Newton away. “Get dressed, you fool. I only gave our neighbors enough protein bars for one hour of privacy.”

“That’s still enough time to go again,” Newton says, placing another open-mouthed kiss at Hermann’s neck. “We could do it.”

Hermann struggles to pull on his jumper while Newton’s still necking him. “Maybe you could, but I can’t,” he reminds Newton.

Newton stills at Hermann’s words. The other man knows that Hermann’s exhaustion runs thickly through his entire being, that Hermann’s spine presses harshly against his skin because he can hardly keep down enough protein bars to keep meat on his bones. Hermann has always been a bit sickly, but being in the tail for so long has not helped matters.

Hermann thinks that he may be dying. There is no use in worrying about it, as they have no doctor in the tail to confirm whether or not this is the case. But it is nonetheless a fact that wears on him just as much as his relentless fatigue does.

“Okay,” Newton says softly, reaching for his own clothes. They dress without speaking; the rattling of the train and the murmur of far-off voices are loud enough to fill the silence.

Newton wraps his arms around Hermann, arranging their bodies so that they are flush against each other. Hermann does not voice his usual complaint that these beds are not _made_ for two people – that they are hardly made for _one_ person. Instead, he presses his hand to Newton’s chest and closes his eyes as the sound of a heartbeat washes over him.

“Hermann,” Newton says. His breath is warm against Hermann’s neck. “Mako says that she saw something the other day.”

“Mmm?” Hermann says. He probably won’t make it back to his bunk tonight – he’s far too sleepy and sated to manage it. He’ll end up falling asleep here in Newton’s arms, with the other man’s body heat warming Hermann in a way that blankets and layers of clothing never seem to. He decides that he’s okay with that.

Newton continues talking: “Well, you know that she’s the one who has to dispose of the, um, limbs after the Minister punishes someone – I can’t believe Pentecost hasn’t bumped up the revolution for that, to be honest, I have no clue how that guy keeps his cool  — but, well. While she was doing that yesterday, she looked out the window and she said that she saw something move!”

“Yes, well, the wind does tend to whip around the snow,” Hermann says, not technically speaking from personal observation – he has not looked out a window since be boarded the train. “Perhaps that’s what she saw..”

“She knows what the snow looks like, and she said it wasn’t that. What she described to me…dude, it sounded just like a bear,” Newton says. Though he is whispering, his voice seems unbearably loud in the emptiness of the compartment

Hermann’s breath catches and his heart seizes in his chest. It takes him a moment to remember how to speak. “That’s impossible,” he says tightly.

“Is it?”

“That’s _impossible-_ ”

“ _You’re_ impossible! You and everyone in this train keeps dismissing my theories, but this is _proof_ , man. I’m not crazy, it really _is-”_

“No one said you were crazy,” Hermann says, shifting so that he’s facing Newton. “But as Pentecost so aptly pointed out when you first proposed this theory, your doctorate is in biology, not environmental ecology. We can’t _know-_ ”

“Mako said there were snow flakes out there!” Newton yells. “Snowflakes, Hermann – snow that _melts._ I know you don’t believe me, but my theory is _right_ : it’s getting warmer out there.”

Hermann has not felt sunlight on his skin since he boarded the train – he’s not sure if he can imagine that kind of warmth. “Even if that were true,” he says softly, “what good would that do? It’s been seventeen years, Newton – it’s nothing but a wasteland out there. There’s nothing there for us.”

“Then maybe it’s time to make something,” Newton insists. He curls in closer to Hermann and presses his face to his neck. “I just can’t shake this feeling that…that maybe the revolution isn’t going to work.”

Hermann balks. Newton’s words might as well be treason this far back in the tail, where hope is all they have to get them through the day. “How can you say that?” he asks, but even as he says it, he knows – Newton may not be wrong. Though no one can dare to think it, this revolution is little more than an act of desperation.

“Come on, dude,” Newton says. “Even if we survive – which is unlikely, by the way, no matter what Chuck and Raleigh think – well. What then? Pentecost takes over the engine? _Fine,_ but what _then_? How are we supposed to undo seventeen years of this bullshit? Yeah, it’s a fucked up system and it has to go, but…Hermann, I don’t even _remember_ anything else.”

Neither does Hermann. The fear in Newton’s voice curls up in Hermann’s chest and rests there until his whole being aches with it. He cradles Newton, holding him close as the other man’s breaths echo in the space around them.

“Newton,” he says. “No matter what happens, whether we live or die or – God help us – somehow escape this train: it shall be _together._ I promise you that.”

"I promise too," Newton says. Newton presses himself against Hermann’s skin, and Hermann knows that if it were not for their physical bodies keeping them at bay, there would be nothing separating them right now — they would mix and intermingle with one another until they completely shared the same space.

 

When Hermann regains consciousness – when he can think past the knives and hot light piercing through his skull every time he moves – his father is sitting across from him.

Hermann had nearly forgotten his father’s face. Even now, looking right at the man, he’s not entirely sure whether those wrinkles match the wrinkles of the man who raised him, whether those blue eyes are truly the eyes of his father.

But the cologne is the same. Spicy and thin and warm, it fills Hermann’s mind with memories of sitting in his father’s office, watching as the man obsessed over the Snowpiercer’s blueprints.

“Father,” Hermann croaks. His voice is stiff and slow to form. Hermann gently touches his throat, wincing at the tender bruises he can already feel forming there.

“I’m sorry that those were necessary,” his father says. “But it’s good to see that you are otherwise okay, Hermann. I have to say, I was worried about you.”

Sweat runs down the back of Hermann’s neck. He marvels at the warmth of this bright, windowless room — at the sheer excess of it. Hermann is not sure if he’s ever felt so warm. “You were?” he says. He hates himself for how small he sounds, how quiet his voice is compared to his father’s confident baritone.

His father raises an eyebrow. “You’re my son. Why wouldn’t I be worried about you?”

“You…” Words and emotions that have been bottled up for years boil inside of Hermann, turning his blood to hot sludge. Hermann’s hands shake and he is grateful for the anger that courses through him, thick and heavy. It amplifies his voice, turns it from a strangled whisper into a sudden shout.

“You _abandoned_ me!” he cries. “You left me to rot in the tail – for seventeen years! Not a single word from you in all that time. You _left_ me there.” Hermann is crying now, sobbing like he hasn’t since he was a child. Sniveling and shaking, he yells at his father. “Your guards killed my friends, they bludgeoned the man I love and I- I still do not even know if he is okay! How can you just sit there and act like none of that happened? How can you expect me to believe anything you say?”

His father stares at him for a long moment before he sighs – there is an ache in that sigh, a kind of pain, but Hermann is too estranged from the man to decipher its source. “Hermann,” his father says. “I understand why you are upset, but you cannot lose sight of reason. Of _course_ I wanted to bring you to the front of the train. But what difference do my desires make? Bringing someone from the tail to the front without a reason – why, Hermann, that would be anarchy. This train is engineered to run forever, but none of that means _anything_ unless we keep the balance.”

“Your balance has caused nothing but suffering,” Hermann says, his tears clogging his throat and making his words nearly indecipherable. “Why bother even keeping it?”

“If only I’d had the chance to speak with you before the tail-enders got to you,” his father says sadly. “They think that their suffering is meaningless, so they perceive it to be unfair. But, Hermann, your suffering was _never_ without meaning. You can see for yourself how you are rewarded for your endurance.”

“How?” Hermann asks. He can no longer tell rage from sorrow – all of it storms within his chest and tears at him from the inside. He thinks of his amputation, of Newton being taken from him, of Pentecost’s execution. Sobs wrack his body as he finally breaks down – his body, his heart, his spirit: pathetic and broken. “How have I possibly been rewarded?”

“Because you are _here_. You alone have made it from the tail of the train to the front. Hermann, the revolution will fail,” his father says gently, “but it will fail as it was always designed to. Its true purpose was to bring you here, for you to have the opportunity to prove your _worthiness_ to be in the front. You didn’t disappoint me, dear boy.”

What Hermann would have given to hear such words before he boarded the train. But now he can feel nothing. He’s just so, achingly _tired_ after that outburst, so _numb_ – he cannot help but be pliant as his father coaxes him to the other side of the compartment.

It is a compartment like no other that Hermann has been in. Its furnishings are expensive, but there are so few of them that the room remains sparse. The real thing that makes it extraordinary is the room _itself_. Its paneled walls glow softly, its insides whirr with the machinery they carry, its very air carries the lifeblood of the entire train: the sacred engine.

His father leads him to the back of the compartment, where a small chamber forms the heart of the sacred engine. It is hollow and large enough to stand in; its arced walls hum happily with all they contain.

“It’s all yours,” his father says. “Your suffering is over now. Dieterich and Bastien were never going to be able take my place as the conductor, Hermann – it always had to be you.”

“…Me?” Hermann whispers, placing a hesitant hand against the chamber. Its panels feels warm and smooth under his palm.

“Why don’t you take a moment?” his father says. “Step inside, study it – you have not seen engineering like this in your entire life, my dear boy.”

Hermann remembers when the train was being built, remembers the itch in his palms as he ached to pour over its blueprints. And now here the engine is, right in front of him – his for the taking.

His feet carry him forward into the train’s heart, its _soul._ Hermann closes his eyes, dragging the tips of his fingers against the walls. Gears and circuits and the brilliant patterns that they create surround Hermann like old friends. He has never felt so at home. It’s as if the hum of energy and potential that flows through this room now flows through _him,_ flows through Hermann, and he gives a shaky exhale at the thought.

How many improvements could he make to this damned train? He could create a more efficient engine, one that leaves more resources to be used by the tail. He could spend years going over every gear, every wire, making this train something _beautiful._ If he could just work on this engine, then maybe the train wouldn’t have to feel like a trap anymore. Hermann wants to believe this _so_ badly. He wants to believe this because when he looks at the cracks between the brightly lit panels, it’s like looking at _stars_.

Hermann has not seen the night sky in seventeen years.

Tears flow freely down his face as his hand falls to his side. No. He does not get this. As much as he wants to improve this engine, to spend days and weeks in its heart, it is not something he can allow himself to have. There are many things that the people of this train need — but another conductor is not one of them.

Hermann’s cries are breathy and hitching, so unlike his tears of rage only minutes before. In place of the angry teenager he’d become in the face of his father, in the face of this engine he’s reduced to a frightened little boy. But instead of filling him with poison and leaving him empty, these tears _relieve_ Hermann of something. Something deep and ugly that’s been filling his insides for so, so long – he’s left drained, but with a mind that is clearer than it has been in a long time.

For years, Hermann has wondered if he’s forgotten how to be brave. Even now, he’s not sure if he can live up to the adjective. How can he possibly be brave when he feels so cold, when he feels the phantom pain from his missing leg, when he feels so _frightened?_ But even as fear creeps through his insides, he at last knows what he must do. And that in itself is almost enough.

Hermann allows himself a final, shuddering sob before wiping his eyes. He stands up as straight as he can manage. _There was no ending in which you got the engine, Gottlieb,_ he reminds himself. _But perhaps there is one where you can help design something better._

He hears his father’s voice from outside the chamber: “It appears your friends are here.”

Yes. Hermann can hear the sounds of fighting and gunshots in the car adjacent to them. He wonders if Newton’s voice is mixed in with the calls of triumph he hears as the battle grows louder.

Suddenly, Hermann knows with a certainty that is not logical or rational in the least: they will make it to the final car. Mako and Tendo and Raleigh – and perhaps even Newton. They will make it here and Newton will kiss Hermann, will wrap his arms around him and squeeze him too tight and then apologize for it without stopping.

Hermann allows himself a small smile. Newton was right. It’s time to make something better. The people who grew up knowing nothing but the train, people like Mako and Chuck – they deserve something far better than this engine.

_It was so beautiful_ , Hermann thinks, taking one last look at the bright lights of the chamber. _It was as beautiful as the stars._ But maybe Hermann will get to see actual stars now. The thought of being able to stargaze once more soothes the fear in his heart.

The door to the adjacent car opens and Hermann hears his name screamed. The engine drowns out most of the voices coming from the other side of the compartment, but Hermann thinks that one of them sounds like the high-pitched, scratchy yell he so fondly remembers. Hermann lets himself believe that it’s his voice. He thinks he deserves that much. 

Hermann sees the levers that need to be pulled, the mechanisms that need to be altered, the panels that must be deactivated – it’s all there, laid out in his mind like a map. _A map to where?_ he thinks, before laughing with desperate, _exhausted_ relief. _Away from here – anywhere but here._

Hermann clears his throat to rid it of residual tears, but when he speaks it still cracks. It doesn’t matter – so long as the sound carries: “Everybody get down and hold on!”

Hermann takes a few seconds to murmur something that’s more apology than prayer to a God he hasn’t worshiped in seventeen years. And he lunges for the levers that will _stop this train_.

So it is.


End file.
